Change Up In My Tracking

 Ok there is a change up happening with my tracking. 

So I have decided to give a layout of it here.Part of this comes from a book I am reading that deals with food and inflammation on the body.

Date                     Day                    MHC 💓💙💚💛💜

Am 12   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12

Pm 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11    12  

Circle around a number means that is the Hour I ate within. / will tell when I went to sleep and woke up within the hour frame.

💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧 64 oz

Multi V   Vit D   Azo   Met   Ator   meds

Meal 1

Symptoms and Reactions

Pain Level and Location

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Meal 2

Symptoms and Reactions

Pain Level and location

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Meal 3

Symptoms and Reactions

Pain Level and Location

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Snack

Symptoms and Reactions

Pain Level and Locations

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Exercise

Stress Level

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Activity/ Energy Level

Poor Fair Moderate Good Great

Mood

Poor Fair Moderate Good Great

Sleep

Poor Fair Moderate Good Great 

I am doing this to get a better look at my food, how it reacts to my body and see if I can start and change the insulin resistance and inflammation in my body.  Plus I'm hoping it will also help decrease my insomnia problem.

Resetting

 

My Health Planner 

I ordered this from Hobby Lobby and the undated inserts for a year. I have fallen off the wagon and I've updated the challenge and weigh in pages. My weight shows that I have fallen off the wagon. So how am I using this planner?

Tracking:

• weight
• blood sugar
• mental health
• medications
• symptoms
• sleep
• hours I eat
• 64 oz of fluid intake
• I'm aiming for 3 meals, 1 snack if I feel like it, recording it all
  
• self care throughout the week
• No soda
• No alcohol-part of the 75 soft challenge I am starting today
• exercise  aiming for 30 minutes which is part of the 75 Soft
• Eat Well part of the 75 Soft
• reading 10 pages a day-part of 75 Soft
• 1 day of rest from physical exercise

Where my physical activity is concerned I'm aiming for 30 minute walks outside which will be possible now that Texas weather is hitting the 70s and above. Plus I will also be doing Walk Away The Pounds videos from You Tube and counting up the miles as well. Plus I'm trying to be more active around the house. 

Eating well for me is severely limiting to completely due away with sodas. I already dont drink alcohol so that is going to be an easy one. No candy, chips, eating more fruit and veggies, low carb meals. Eating food that will help to lessen my insulin resistance and inflammation in my body. I want to work on drinking more water but I'm not a fan of plain water even infused water with lemons and limes and such, just not a fan. 

75 soft also wants progress pictures. This picture is from a few years ago but body wise it is on spot for me currently still which is something I truly want to change. 

I have a goal that I want to reach come the end of the year Dec 31 I want to be at 200 lbs or below.  That is 30 lbs and I have 8 months which means I need to aim for a 3 lb loss a month. That is truly NOT unreachable. And my other major goal I want to reach at the end of the year is to be Non Diabetic and off that medication for good.

I also now have a weight loss accountable buddy that I will be checking in with 2 times a week. I'm excited to start my version of 75 soft. 

An example of how I am daily tracking:

As I go along the challenge I will share more pics once I have one filled out to give you a better view of how I'm doing it and also for my own accountability. 

Plus then when I go back to the doctor everything is recorded in 1 place. No worrying about having to write this or that down.

Answered Prayers

 

Thank you God. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Mother Mary.

Reaper

 

This poor thing I'm surprised by it. It had watermelon juice, coffee, tea all spelt on it and still the glue remained good and the diamonds stuck. But I am proud that it's finished. 

Leaving Things Behind

 

For months now I have been seriously considering downsizing my social media interactions. I am someone who has an addictive personality and I can honestly admit that online at times has become/been an addiction to where it interferes with my daily life. 

So, yesterday I went in and cleared out a lot of my social media. I left online groups which went from about 20 to about 5. I have been downsizing my Instagram and curbing my time on it. I follow a lot of weight loss, recipe, christian sites on it. 

I am not reaching for my phone first thing in the morning to check social media. I'm doing my best to leave my lap top turned off most of the day and evening. I want to get back to a simpler life and social media doesn't have a big place in that vision. 

I remember before the internet, yes there was such a thing. I use to do a lot of stuff out doors, I use to listen to music, read, go for walks, play with the kids, go visit family. Hubby and I use to do a lot of paid lake fishing. We use to go for long walks through the nature trails at state parks. God, I miss those days. I truly do. 

Since I have been growing my relationship with Jesus, Mother Mary and God I have noticed that my anxiety, worries, fears, and just a general feeling of unease is not such a big issue anymore. I think a big part of it is because we're over stimulated by being able to have an online presence at our fingertips 24/7 365 days a year. 

Our youngest son and I sat down and watched Love Without Borders on Peacock. They only had 1 season filmed but it was a really good show. It was most definitely interesting. I liked it better than 90 Day Finance. But our son had some time off from work so we spent a few hours just hanging out together which was really nice. 

It's funny because since I gave myself over to God I threw out all of my spirituality, New Age things and I have absolutely no regrets, no desire to have any of it back. I don't miss it at all. I even quit watching You Tubers along those same lines of things. I deleted those kind of accounts from my Instagram. Jesus, Mother Mary, God have showed me a lot of things, have opened my eyes to a lot of things. I find myself wanting to turn back to a more feminine woman, showing my softer side all the way around not only to my husband but my family as well. I am going back to a more quiet centered nature. I'm learning to enjoy the quiet, stillness, the silence of life again as I did in my younger years. 

So leaving things behind isn't a bad thing especially when you gain so much in return. 

Another Hobby

 

2 finishes in Small Victories by Johanna Basford done with Crayola Markers.

Learning

 

Bria Jones 

This You Tuber was worth listening to today. I actually discovered quite a bit of stuff about myself. 

I also made some decisions.

• I will only weigh myself 3 times a month now
• I need to reconnect to my body
• I will only eat when my body physically tells me it needs fuel
• Separate my feelings from hunger
• Just because everyone else is eating doesn't mean I have to if I'm not hungry
• Stop calling foods good or bad, the industry in order profit off us have drilled this into our heads about food
• I am no longer on a weight "lost" journey. I'm tired of that bitch coming back with her friends and moving in when she was evicted to begin with.
• I am in the process with God's help of Transforming my body inside and out

We have all fallen victim to watching shows, You Tube, or other social media and doing whatever worked for that person cause what we were trying is no long er working. It's time to stop the madness. 

It's like with the Planner community, you can like something that someone else has, enjoy it and not purchase it but keep doing what works for you, not for that person because you're not that person, you are you. 

I learned some heavy things about my mind. Everything has to start in the mind. 

I love it when people can make me stop and "think" about things behind the scenes. 

Movie Review

 

Trailer

I watched this on Hbo Max and I absolutely loved it. It put a new twist on an old tale. Very interesting all the way through. I must say I was rather surprised by the acting of both major characters in this. The love story part though I could have done without but it was okay. I'm rather glad those scenes were few. 

Rating 5 *****

A Finished Project

 

For Valentines Day my hubby ordered me a bunch of small Diamond Paintings to do. I use to do this hobby back in the day but then it got too be too expensive. But thanks to Amazon and some of the other retailers its a hobby I'm enjoying again.

Ask And You Shall Recieve

 

Amen

Still Fighting

 

I've been fighting a battle for a long time. I know I've fought longer than I probably would have needed to if only I had stayed with it. 

My weight issues didn't start until after the birth of our last child. Pregnancy definitely changes your body. When I began to fight my battle I weighed in at 250 lbs. I am now down to 233. That's not a lot of weight but then again it is. Learning how to maintain a lower weight is a struggle all on its own. I have to say it's also by the grace of God that I have managed this. 

At first I believed the hype of all I needed to do was watch what I ate, how much I ate, calories in and calories out, exercise like I was possessed. To a certain degree I was possessed by addiction to food. Although I didn't come to realize this until a few years later. 

I realized that I was also an emotional eater. Stress played a Huge part in my disordered eating. I had to start looking within, facing some of them demons and slaying their asses. It was hard to admit that I had started to eat in secret. It was hard not to constantly finish cleaning the kids plate. I didn't like food going t waste but by eating whatever they hadn't on their plates I was punishing myself and my body for no reason other than to conform to a rule made up by society standards. 

I have tried every diet or fad coming and going. NONE OF THEM WORK! There is no quick fix or solution to our weight issues except facing ourselves. We get good at sweeping things under the rug, refusing to see the problem for what it is. We are taught that our worth is in our looks, our appearance, our body shape. The ONLY way that is true is because it is departmental to our over all health and well being. 

I am now fighting Type 2 Diabetes. Not where I want to be. Once again at the advice of my doctor I tried another weight loss drug which sent me to the ER and then having to see a specialist afterwards because I ended up having an allergic reaction. But I was so desperate for some kind of hope, to believe that I had finally found a doctor that cared about her patients. Yeah I was mistaken cause I was told if I had kept to the food plan that I would never had that allergic reaction to the weight loss drug. It was My fault.

My family and my husband is supportive of me in losing the weight but they don't understand the battle with it because they don't have these body issues. It's hard for someone to understand everything that goes into a person gaining and then fighting to lose it all when they have never had to worry about what they eat. 

It is all part of a mindset but that is only half the battle. When you're a person battling with mental health issues to begin with it makes things even harder. Add in the fact that I went into menopause early due to a partial hysterectomy, yeah that didn't help either. I am not a gym person. I have listened to podcast, I have joined online groups for community and accountability and none of it worked. 

Even now that I struggle with type 2 I still have trouble with disordered eating. I move forward a step and move back three. So I finally hit a point where I asked God to help me regain my health and turn it around. It is still a slow process cause yes while he is helping he isn't going to do all the work for you. Although I wish sometimes he would, you know? It'd make my life a lot easier but see that's the thing we have all gotten use to life being easier to where we didn't need to hold ourselves accountable or keep any type of boundaries around our health. 

So I decided to try something new. I am doing a bible study on losing weight. 

What have I got to lose, right? Except this weight and bad health.
  

Semi Gloomy Day

 

I love taking pictures, always have. This week the weather has definitely had its ups and downs. We've gotten a lot of rain lately. I was heading out to run some errands and took this picture. Just a small glimpse of my day.

My Testimony

 

Wow, where to begin this story....This is coming late in my life although I have not always been a stranger to the Creator. 

I grew up in a semi spiritual household. My grandpa was Native American and my grandma was Christian and so was my mom. I have never had a firm footing on either path and have floated between many that is until now. I will still not call or consider myself a Christian because of deep wounds between the church and myself. I am a child of the Creator, of God. 

When I was younger I found church boring and would often fall asleep to the pastors preaching. My mom use to have a collection of the "old" Lifetime books on religion and spiritual/occult things. Some of them pictures scared the hell out of me as a child. But they were also enough to plant the seed of curiosity.

I've had supernatural experiences my entire life. A lot of the women in my family had abilities. But of course because I was willing to be open about it, ask all kinds of questions to try and understand what was happening when these things occurred I was berated and threatened for it. I learned it was just better to suffer in silence. 

So my family had me baptized at the age of 7 which I had no idea what that meant. I wasn't able to fully grasp what I was pledging myself to or for. Over the years I grew away from the church especially in my teen years. And because I grew up in a abusive home life and one where I was sexually molested by family I grew further away from God cause I blamed him for not stopping what was happening to me. 

I found my way to alternative belief systems. I dabbled. For several years I went back and forth between trying to find God, having nothing to do with the church to other Gods and Goddesses. I started to research Native American faiths as well because that is a part of my bloodline. I got married and tried the whole church life again. Needless to say it didn't work out. 

I have always questioned everything. I have been on a life long journey of seeking answers to understand why things were happening to me, how to heal myself of the pain of abuse and assault. I was looking for release, for peace but I could never find it. 

So eventually I started looking into Wicca and discovered it wasn't for me. Then I started researching Buddha and Quan Yin and for several years they helped to gain some form of control and peace, patience within myself. After that I started in on oracle decks, tarot cards and delved further into New Age practices. New age practices was fascinating but it just kept leading me down a never ending tunnel of rabbit holes and hoops I needed to jump through. I started to have more experiences. 

I had a few that really scared me. I had no control over when they would happen which scared the hell out of me even more.  Which lead me further into Witchcraft cause it promises all kinds of spells and wards to protect yourself with but that was a slippery slope in itself. I still ended up going down rabbit holes because you never truly found just the right thing to work all the time. It was a never ending road of bread crumbs. 

Well I came to dead end in witchcraft too which then started leading me down the path to searching out live traditions and aspects of conjuring and further slipping down a dark path. And it's so disguised that you get lost to it very easily I also started to investigate aspects of satanic worship and thats when God woke me up to what was happening to where I was willingly leading myself cause I was trying to find answers, peace and understanding which I never would have found there either and could have lost everything. 

But Jesus and God along with Mother Mary kept popping up in places in my life, videos where being placed in front of me on my you tube feed and so forth. Then I started watching a lot of people's testimonies about finding their way back from all of that to the Creator. 

I may not have been in step with Jesus and God all the way through my life but between them and Mother Mary I have seen they never truly left me but were waiting for me to open my eyes and see and with their help to see where I was heading I have turned back towards Jesus, God, Mother Mary. I am now in the process of growing my relationship with them on a very personal level. God has showed me I don't need to be in a church to seek him, talk to him, pray to him. I can do that from anywhere. 

I am grateful that God and Mother Mary have answered several prayers. Jesus has showed me he is right here with me to help me walk on the right path. I am being showed ways to be able to listen to him when he speaks to me, when he's showing me what I need to do to become closer to him. 

I never thought I would ever find my way back to God. I was a hard core alternative spiritual person for a very long time. I was also a very naive person because I never truly researched everything I had been dabbling in. I am extremely lucky that God protected me from things getting worse then what little I had witnessed. And since I have been back to my walk with the Creator I've had none of those experiences. 

God is showing me the things I need to work on. He is showing me the way to be a better person. He is showing me how I can find that peace and healing I have needed for so very long.

Another Diamond Art Painting Finished

 

I love Gnomes so this one took me no time at all to finish. I love all the bright colors in it.